AAF-2024

2024

What does the year 2024 have in store for us? Naturally, we all hope that the world will be more peaceful. In musical respect, many wonderful events have been scheduled for this year. We can look forward to several major competitions and many other ones which can also be very exciting and deliver great winners! Already in January, two very interesting competitions are held: the UNISA competition in Pretoria and the Gurwitz in San Antonio (Texas, USA). Preselections were held for these competitions, after which 13 resp. 12 pianists were invited to compete. During three weeks in February, the Classic Piano competition takes place in Dubai, to which the top five winners of 14 international pre-competitions held in 2022/2023, will be admitted. Fifteen jury members have to decide which pianist may get the first prize of 150,000 Euros … In April, the 3 rd Jinji Lake international piano competition will be held in Suzhou (China), to which 30 pianists will be invited. The end of April, six pianists will travel to Sacile (Italy) to compete in the final phase of the FVG Competition. (The first phase was held in May 2023.) In May, the Montreal competition will be for pianists again! This competition offers substantial prizes and awards, totalling CAD 200,000! The 24 candidates were chosen from among 388 applicants. Two weeks later, the brandnew Borderland Chopin competition will be held in El Paso (Texas, USA). Actually, quite a few new international piano competitions will be launched in 2024, such as the ones in Málaga (Spain, June), Gabriela Weiss IPC in Mińsk Mazowiecki (Poland, July), the Blanca Uribe IPC in Ibagué Tolima (Colombia, October) and the international piano competition in Sorel-Tracy (Canada, October). Several of these competitions offer very attractive awards such as a 20,000 and even 25,000 Dollars first prize. The Gabriela Weiss competition is special for doing a preselection during which the adjudication panel will have no information at all about the contestants and will only judge the audio track of the submitted video recordings. In June, the 16 th Concours Géza Anda will take place in Zürich with Martha Argerich as one of the jury members, Mikhail Pletnev conducting the Mozart concertos and Paavo Järvi the finals. It overlaps with the Schumann Competition in Zwickau which is held only once in four years. Twenty-two pianists aged between 16 and 22 will be selected for the New York IPC where they all play four rounds without elimination and compete for the US$ 20,000 first prize. At the same time, the Gina Bachauer Artists Competition will take place in Salt Lake City. In August, both the Cleveland Piano competition and the Palma d’Oro competition in Finale Ligure (Italy) will celebrate their 50 th anniversary! Just before the finals, Cleveland will host the 3 rd AAF Conference. In September, the Leeds in England overlaps with the Enescu competition in Bucharest. In October, we see the revival of the Xiamen IPC, followed by the 12 th Hamamatsu competition in Japan in November.

Alink-Argerich Foundation 2024